In the last twelve months i have visited the local tip more times than i have in my entire. I have experienced many things at the tip in this time including a member of staff taking a box of muesli out of a skip and loudly proclaiming to his colleague “there’s nowt wrong wi it”. I had never at any point however felt slightly threatened, until yesterday that is.

Since moving house there has been quite a lot of work to do, in fact there is still quite a lot of work to do especially in the garden. Last weekend i attacked the garden hacking, slashing, smashing and all sorts pretty much all weekend. I did not have time to take all of the garden waste and rubble to the tip, yesterday presented as the perfect opportunity to fix this. Off to the tip i run in the car, it took me four trips in total. Trips one, two and four presented nothing in the way of problems, trip three however was a bit of an issue. I took a lot of garden waste, mainly branches from some bushes i cut down which were loose in the back of the car meaning i had to grab arm fulls of branches. The result of this was that i occasionally dropped bits on the floor, while heading back to my car i picked up the bigger bits that i had dropped on the floor.

After finishing unloading the car i noticed at the back of my car a small pile of earth and some loose leaves. For me to pick this up would be ridiculous, i felt kinda bad about leaving it there but figured there was nothing that i could do and that the staff would have a way of cleaning it up. As i was getting in to my car a member of staff shouted to me, i walked over to him and he passed me a broom while saying “that’s a big pile of shit you’ve left there”. I was a little taken aback by what he had said to me, so shocked that i took the broom and swept it up. This is quite unlike me, i can be a little confrontational in situations like this. I think it was a cross between shock at the way he had spoken to me and the fact i wanted to come back and bring another load. When i gave the bloke the broom back he said “are you coming back?” i replied that i was, his response threw me even more “i’ll be waiting for you”.

I’ll be waiting for you??? I got the feeling that he didn’t mean to help me unload my car, it felt slightly menacing. I got in my car and drove home, with every passing second i was getting angrier and angrier with what had happened to the point that i almost turned around to go back. I got home and told Jen, she was as astounded as i was, thank god i thought it was just me. I decided that when i went back i would ask the guy for his name in order to report him. Trip number four i unload the car then do the full on movie moment where i stand at my car door with the key in the lock trying to decide whether or not to just leave it or ask for the guys name. I decided to ask, i approached the guy and asked his name which he gave me and then asked me why. Another member of staff was with him and he denied saying it. I told him i didn’t appreciate his tone and that i was goiong to complain, he then claimed that he recognized me and that every time i come i always leave a mess and that he was sick of it. Talk about trying to get yourself out of a sticky situation.

I will definitely be complaining, mainly because if he speaks to a guy my size (i’m not saying i’m massively muscular or anything but i am six foot seven) nothing is going to stop him speaking to other people like this and that is totally unacceptable.